


Which alters when it alteration finds

by andimeantittosting (Saylee)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - s14e13 Altered Timeline, Angelic Reprogramming, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s14e13 Lebanon, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Memory gaps, Season 4-esque Castiel, Solo Hunter Dean Winchester, Temporal Paradox, Turtleneck-Kale-TEDtalk Lawyer Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2019-10-27 05:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17760431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saylee/pseuds/andimeantittosting
Summary: Castiel comes to in a field, the only one aware that a temporal paradox had existed and that reality has reset around it. Preparing to report back to heaven, he finds himself cut off. With no other recourse, and with worrying holes in his memory, he sets out to find the man responsible. Even if this timeline's Dean Winchester doesn't know what he's done, he's still Castiel's best hope.With his face plastered on wanted posters across the country, Dean is none-too-pleased to be woken in his car by a weirdo who calls him by his full name and claims to be an angel. When filling him full of buckshot doesn't even make him flinch, he demands Dean's help in getting home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've always said I would never post a WIP, so here is me eating my words. As soon as this story took shape in my mind, I knew I had to post the first chapter as soon as possible. Be aware that certain tags, and the rating become more relevant in later chapters.
> 
> Major thanks to [jscribbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jscribbles/pseuds/jscribbles) and [MalMuses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses/pseuds/MalMuses) for their invaluable help on this fic and for being awesome people in general!

Castiel comes to in a field. He blinks the unfamiliar human eyes of his vessel up at the sky and lets himself recalibrate. To human perception, this takes perhaps a fraction of a second, but to Castiel, it takes long enough to be concerning. He makes a mental note of it and files it away.

Too often, lately, he has noticed that his reaction time has slowed. Moreover, there are blank spots, gaps even, in his memory. He hopes he is not becoming defective. He should, by rights, report these lapses to his superiors, but a strange sense of trepidation stops him.  

He assesses his memory now for blanks, and is pleased to find the information organized neatly. A temporal paradox. Confronting the perpetrators in Lebanon, Kansas. Being fended off with some sort of food display stand by a man who claimed to know him. Zachariah, dead—his superiors won’t like that. Himself, banished.

The timeline has fully adjusted, he senses. None of the humans will remember any other course of events. Only Castiel, with his angelic senses, can recall that there was a temporal paradox at all.

He must report this.

He climbs to his vessel’s human feet and prepares to return to heaven. Nothing happens. He frowns—the easiest expression to make with this human face—and tries again. Still nothing. On the ethereal plane, his wings stretch wide, but there is no answering frequency from heaven, no familiar slipstream guiding him home. No voices from his fellow angels at all. It’s like he’s been cut off entirely.

Castiel’s wings flare in involuntary panic. He can’t be stranded here on earth. He can’t be stranded among _humans._ He thinks he must have interacted with them before, but he has no memories of doing so.

He needs to get back home.

That man! The one who had claimed to know him, the one who had called him _Cas_ , the one who was responsible for the temporal paradox.

In this timeline, he would remember none of that, but he was still Castiel’s best chance of getting home.

He has to find Dean Winchester.

~~~

 

Dean wakes up in his car, his cellphone plastered to his face. He pulls it from his skin and squints at it. One finished call with Bobby. Vaguely, he remembers the old man calling to admonish him for taking on another hunt and not laying low like he should be.

_“I saw another wanted poster with yer ugly mug on it, and you’re off pretending to be the damn FBI to hunt down some ghouls.”_

_“Wraiths, Bobby. It was wraiths.”_

_“I don’t care if it was the ghost of Elvis. I told you to keep your head down, you idjit, let this blow over. There’s always a spare room at my house with your name on it.”_

_Dean scoffs. “And let people think you’re harboring a serial killer? Pass. Besides, you know I need to be on the road, Bobby. Can’t stand staying in one place too long. Only home I need is my Baby.”_

_“Uh huh,” Bobby says skeptically. “And how’s that working out for you?”_

Stretching the kinks out of his back, Dean silently concedes that Bobby may have a point. Living in his car may be all well and good, but _sleeping_ in his car, well, that was a whole lot easier when he was younger. He just turned forty, and isn’t that a kicker? Never thought he’d live this long.

There’s a tapping above his head, and Dean finally clocks it as the sound that woke him up. He sits up, and comes face-to-face with a man who is peering into his window and tapping on the glass.

The man doesn’t back up when Dean sits up, though he does still his fingers against the glass. He makes no further move, simply watching Dean with a squinty but unnervingly intense gaze. Without taking his eyes from the man, Dean lets his fingers dip into the floorwell, retrieving his gun and surreptitiously switching the safety off.

When Dean places his hand on the door handle, the man finally backs up, but only enough to allow Dean to slip out the door. No sooner does the door click shut behind Dean than the man is all up in his face. Dean is reassured at least to find that he has an inch or so on him.

“Dean Winchester?” says the man, and his voice is like whiskey over gravel.

Between them, Dean raises the gun to point directly at the other man’s chest. “Who’s askin’?”

Unfazed by the cold steel barrel pressing into his chest, the man says, “I am an angel of the Lord, and you are going to restore me to heaven.”

“Buddy,” Dean says. “There ain’t no such thing.”

Preternaturally fast, the man’s hand clamps onto Dean’s upper arm with a grip far too strong to be human. “I am a warrior of God, and you _will_ help me.”

Without hesitation, Dean unloads a bullet into the creature’s chest. It doesn’t so much as flinch. Increasingly unnerved, Dean empties the rest of the chamber, one after the other, with no effect. Tossing aside the empty gun, he grabs a knife from the holster he keeps at his side and rams it hilt-deep into the creature’s heart.

Without missing a beat, the creature simply grasps the hilt, pulling the knife inch-by-inch out of its own chest. When the blade comes free, it lets it drop unheeded to the ground.

“What are you?” Dean whispers.

The creature regards him almost curiously. “You are very stubborn. My name is Castiel, I’m an angel of the Lord, and I need your help.”

~~~

 

“My help,” Dean Winchester repeats. “You need _my_ help.” Castiel’s not sure why it’s such a difficult concept to understand. “Why me?”

Castiel squints at him. Focusing through one single pair of human eyes is so frustrating. “Because,” he explains, “it’s your fault I can't get back to heaven.”

“Okay, first,” Dean drawls. “You still haven’t convinced me there’s such a thing as angels.”

Are all humans so infuriating? Gathering his power about him like a cloak, Castiel unfurls his wings, drawing their shadows into this plane with a crack like thunder, and flaring them wide. Dean gulps, his eyes like saucers.

Feeling almost smug, Castiel folds his wings away. “Are you convinced now?”

Dean swallows heavily. “Uh, yeah. That - that’s hard to argue with.”

“Good. Then you will help me.”

“Sure. But, Buddy, I still don’t know how I’m supposed to have done anything to you.”

~~~

 

Castiel’s explanation makes Dean’s head hurt, possibly because Castiel seems to have significant holes in his knowledge as well.

“So you’re telling me that I—some other I—”

“—and your brother—”

“My brother, sure. Sam’s been out of the life for years.” Castiel glares, so Dean sets that little discrepancy aside. “I—fine, we—caused a temporal paradox. But you don’t know how, or what the paradox was, or what the world was like before. And now, because of this paradox—”

“—I’m cut off from heaven. Yes.”

“Well, shit.” Dean scratches the nape of his neck. “I don’t know what that other me was mixed up in, but man, this is way above my paygrade. I hunt vampires. Ghosts. Vetala, maybe. I want to help you, but I know nothing about heaven.”

Castiel’s squint intensifies, in that was Dean is already learning means frustration. “Perhaps we should pay a visit to your brother.”

“What? No. C’mon, I already told you, he’s out of the life. Besides, Sammy doesn’t want anything to do with me. Family’s just a distraction.” Okay, so he’s watched Sam’s TEDtalk more than a few times. It’s the only connection he still gets to have with his brother.

“Seeing your brother may help me sense what has happened.”

Dean grumbles. “Okay, fine. But when he tells us to get lost, I get to say I told you so.”

“You may say what you like.” Castiel doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the possibility. He reaches for Dean’s arm. “I’ll take us there.”

Dean dances back out of range of the angel’s reach. “Oh no. You aren’t teleporting me anywhere. Especially not if your mojo’s on the fritz. We’re taking my Baby.” He pats the Impala’s hood.

~~~

 

Travelling by car is slow and confining. When Castiel says as much, Dean counters, “You should see the cars they make these days. My Baby is downright roomy.” He strokes the dashboard with a kind of fondness Castiel believes is usually reserved for other humans or for companion animals. He is coming to understand that Dean Winchester is a distinctly odd human.

“So,” Dean says conversationally, perhaps an hour into their journey. “I thought angels were supposed to be all eyes and wings and wheels of fire. That, or fat babies. Do all angels look like tax accountants?”

“This?” Castiel pats the chest of the body he wears. “This is a vessel. In my true form—”

But Dean swerves abruptly onto the gravel shoulder and slams on the brakes. “You mean you’re _possessing_ some poor bastard?”

“I—” Castiel goes to explain that he has his vessel’s consent, but stops short as he realizes he can’t remember the circumstances of taking this vessel. Unsettled, he reaches inside, searching for that spark of life, safely tucked away, where his vessel’s soul should be.

He finds nothing. Disturbed he probes further, but there is nothing, no sign that he is anything but alone in this vessel, not even an echo to tell him who the owner of this body was, how he came to be alone in it, nothing. In the ethereal plane, his wings flutter in agitation. Why can’t he recall anything.

“Whoa, buddy,” Dean’s voice cuts through the haze of his panic. “You okay there?” His hand on Castiel’s shoulder is oddly grounding.

Castiel fixes him with a wide-eyed stare. “I can’t find my vessel’s soul. Angels require permission to take a vessel, but I can’t find the man this body belongs to, and I—I can’t recall—I can’t remember—it’s all just missing.”

“Breathe, Cas,” Dean says. “In and out. In. And out. Do angels even need to breathe?” As Castiel calms, he asks, “This because of the temporal paradox?”

Castiel shakes his head. “No. I don’t think so. These lapses, I’ve been having them for awhile. But never this… extensive. At least, not that I can recall.” His wings flutter again as he contemplates the possibility that he is missing more information, information he no longer remembers he should have.

“Hey.” Dean pats his shoulder. “You’re alright. We’re gonna get you back to heaven, and then you can book yourself in at the angel doctor’s, get yourself fixed up. You got angelic health insurance?”

Settling, Castiel fixes him with a withering look. “A healthcare system predicated upon the need for individual wealth is inherently failing in its purpose.”

To Castiel's bafflement, Dean laughs. “You’re telling me. My healthcare system is a bottle of whiskey and some dental floss.”

~~~

 

They stop for the night at a rundown roadside motel. Dean had been planning on simply bunking down in the car again, but Castiel had objected on the grounds that humans required better quality rest than could be acquired in the backseat of a car, even one as roomy as Baby.

“The thing is, Cas,” Dean tried to explain. “I’m kinda America’s Most Wanted right now, and I don’t really feel like landing myself in jail tonight.”

“Don’t worry. They won’t recognize you.”

Dean’s not sure what mojo Cas used to ease his way past the desk clerk, but as he stretches out on top of a real mattress for the first time in weeks, he doesn’t care. “Nice work on the whole jedi mind trick, there.”

Castiel simply squints at him—the angel’s default expression. It makes him look all smitey, but it also gets Dean’s motor revving, go figure.

“You know, ‘these are not the droids you’re looking for.’”

“I don’t understand that reference.” Castiel still has not moved from where he stands stiffly at the door.

“Of course you don’t.” Sitting up, Dean works his jeans down his hips. He has sweatpants in his bag. If he’s gonna sleep in a real bed, he’s gonna get comfy to do it.

Castiel doesn’t avert his gaze, still staring at Dean with that same intense expression. Dean tries not to be disconcerted by stripping in front of an angel.

“So,” he asks after a long beat. “Do you sleep? You’ve had kind of a long day, huh?”

Castiel doesn’t so much as blink. “I don’t require sleep.”

“Figured as much.” Dean grunts as he leans across the bed to grab his laptop off the nightstand. He boots it up and opens the first star wars movie, pausing on the first frame. “Here, you can watch this. Keep you from getting bored while I get my four hours.”

“I do not get bored.” Belatedly, he adds, “And humans require more than four hours sleep.”

Dean shrugs. “Keep you from staring at me when I sleep, then.” He pats the space on the bed beside him. “Come on, take a load off.”

Castiel regards the bed and the laptop, and even Dean, with deep suspicion, but eventually he relents, arranging himself on the bed like he has never sat anywhere before—and maybe he hasn’t. He accepts the laptop when Dean places it across his legs, though he makes no further move to start the movie. With a shake of his head, Dean leans over and hits play.

The familiar scroll immediately sucks him in. Despite his exhaustion, he finds himself watching the whole thing with Castiel, glancing at him from time to time to gauge his reaction. Castiel is not an expressive movie-watcher, but Dean amuses himself in cataloguing the tiny shifts in his face, the way his brow furrows further as he tries to understand human motivations, and the light that dawns in his eyes when he recognizes Dean’s ‘droids’ reference.

Dean yawns as the familiar score signals the end of the movie. Castiel frowns at him.

“You must sleep.”

Dean yawns again. “Sure. Let me just cue up Empire for you.” He reaches for the laptop, but Castiel clicks it shut decisively and sets it down on his bedside table.

“You must sleep,” he says again. “You may show me ‘Empire’ another time.”

“Sure thing, Buddy,” Dean agrees, already burrowing down into his pillow. As he drifts off, he remembers with faint bemusement, his mother’s voice, telling him, _“Angels are watching over you.”_

~~~

 

Sam Winchester leads a neatly regimented life. Up at five. Kale smoothie. 5k run. Five minute shower. Another smoothie, this one with acai. Arrive at work at precisely seven. Boot up the treadmill desk. Keep up a steady pace while he works on client accounts, only pausing for scheduled meetings. Productive. Efficient. No surprises.

Which is why he is less than thrilled when he returns from his weekly report in the boardroom to find his brother in his office.

“What are you doing here?” he hisses, closing the door swiftly—but quietly, so as not to cause a scene—behind him. “You can’t be here. How did you get past security?”

Dean makes a face, all too familiar even after all these years. “What, Sammy, you have your security guards on alert to keep your ne’er-do-well brother out?”

“They don’t know you’re my brother.” If Sam didn’t know better, he might think Dean was hurt. _This_ is why he doesn’t do family. Too much complication. He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, messing up its perfect control. “What? You’re a wanted felon, Dean. You’ve murdered people.”

Dean scoffs. “You know as well as I do that those ‘people’ were monsters. I didn’t kill anything that didn’t think humans were the main course.”

Sam folds his arms over his chest. “That still doesn’t explain how you got up here without anyone noticing you.”

“Oh, that.” A grin spreads over Dean’s face that Sam considers highly inappropriate for the situation. “He helped me.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and for the first time, Sam becomes aware of the other man in the room.

As soon as he notices him, Sam can’t understand how he missed him. In his oversized suit and trenchcoat, wearing an expression of angry incomprehension, he looks as out of place in Sam’s modern, minimalist office, as Dean in his ratty jeans and flannel.

Supremely unconcerned, Dean introduces them. “Cas, meet Sam. Sam, this is Cas. Castiel. He’s an angel of the lord.”

~~~

 

Bobby Singer is not having a good day. He’d spent a good chunk of his morning impersonating Homeland Security after that hothead Claire Novak landed herself knee deep in shit, his bum knee is acting up, and the closest thing he has to a son is wanted in all fifty states. So when someone pounds on his backdoor, it’s with a good deal of grumbling that he turns off the burner where he’s making chili and heads to answer it.

He pulls open the door and bites out a curse.

“Hey there, Bobby,” says John Winchester.

~~~

 

Dean’s just about through explaining the situation to Sam—who seems utterly unimpressed—when his phone rings. Not even Castiel’s otherworldly presence seems to sway him.

“I’ve told you, Dean. I want nothing to do with hunting. I left that life years ago.”

Dean dismisses the call. “Don’t think of this as hunting. Think of it as doing a good turn for a being in need.”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t get why you’d come to me. Why don’t you get one of your ‘hunting buddies’ to help out?”

“Because, Sam—” Dean starts to explain, but then his phone rings again. He fishes it out and frowns down at it. Bobby only calls twice in a row if it’s important. He holds up an index finger as he answers. “Talk to me, Bobby.” He listens for a moment and says, “I’ll head straight there.”

He hangs up the phone. “Sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got to get to Bobby’s. Dad just got there.”

Sam makes a scoffing noise, and Dean gives him a look.

Sam shakes his head in that superior way Dean hates. “Really, Dean? All these years later, and you still drop everything for Dad. I’d have thought you might be your own person by now.”

Dean’s not gonna touch that with a ten-foot pole. “Sam, Dad’s been missing for sixteen years.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [saltnhalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltnhalo/pseuds/saltnhalo) for the feedback on this chapter, and to [MalMuses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses/pseuds/MalMuses) for betaing!

_ “Dad’s been missing for sixteen years.” _

Sam’s still not sure why that convinced him to come. After all, he’d been perfectly fine the last sixteen years, acting as if his father had dropped off the face of the earth. What difference does it make that he actually had?

And yet, here he is, crammed into the backseat of the old Impala—because of course Dean still refuses to fly like any sensible person—with his wanted felon brother and a so-called angel. Sam remains skeptical. He’d believed in angels, once, and God, and a higher purpose—something to balance out all the monsters in the world—but life has taught him that there’s no good in the world except what can be achieved with hard work.

Sometimes he thinks back on idealistic young Sam with a scoff and a shake of his head. He used to believe in family, too, even after he’d left his behind for Stanford. He’d always believed he could build a new family, a normal one. He’d put paid to that bit of folly when Jess had left him. Without emotional attachments to hold him back, he’d been more successful than that eighteen-year-old with all his worldly possessions in one backpack could ever have dreamed.

He doesn’t feel successful now— too many years of his life spent in this backseat for him to relish being here again. He feels uncomfortably like he’s twelve years old. There’s even the same persistent rattle from the Legos Dean had once stuck into the vents. The only thing that’s different is the license plates.

Well, that and the fact that it’s Dean in the driver’s seat instead of his Dad, and that ‘shotgun’ is taken up by the so-called angel. Sam had expected him to object to this detour from his return-to-heaven mission. But he had merely frowned—or maybe that was just his face—and decreed that rather than Dean or Sam,  _ John  _ might be the key to figuring out the lingering effects of the temporal paradox.

Right now, Dean is trying to explain to a stone-faced and uncomprehending angel how to choose a tape from the ancient shoe box in the footwell and insert it into the Impala’s cassette player. His attention veers sharply between the road and his passenger. Neither seems to find it the slightest bit ridiculous that Dean still uses tapes. And, god, it’s probably still the same mullet rock that Dean had inherited from John. Sam shudders. He doesn’t know if he can take that.

It turns out there are some things that are worse than talking to his brother.

“So,” he says, throwing caution to the wind, and interrupting the pair in the front seat who have a cassette poised just in front of the tape deck. “Dad’s been missing sixteen years. What happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean’s shoulders tense. “Would you have cared?”

Unobtrusively, Castiel slips the tape back into the shoebox, and replaces the whole thing by his feet.

Dean sighs. “Sorry, that was unfair,” he says, even though Sam’s not so sure it was. “Dad was out on a hunt. I’d stayed behind in the last town we hit to make sure the ghost really had cleared out. He was due back in a day or two, and then he just clean stopped answering his phone.” He shrugs as if it were no big deal, but Sam knows his brother—or at least what his brother was like before he left—and doesn’t believe for one second that Dean is a nonchalant as he seems.

Dean continues, “I gave him—a day, maybe. Then I hightailed it over to his last known location. I found the Impala, his phone, everything. Even the weapons cache. But he was just gone.

“And you know,” he goes on, “I figured the hunt had gone wrong. Searched all over town, but the case seemed to be solved, and I couldn’t find any trace of him. I  _ would’ve  _ called you then, but that was the winter you were down with strep.”

“How—” Sam starts to say— _ how did you know I had strep throat?— _ but lets the words die in his throat, because is he really surprised that Dean was keeping tabs on him at school?

Dean fixes him with a look in the rearview mirror. “Of course I was looking out for your ass, bitch. Anyway, I didn’t know what to do, so I called up Bobby. Figured it was a risk, cause of the way things went last time we saw him. You remember? He chased Dad off with a shotgun. Lucky thing I did, cause the old sonuvabitch dropped everything to come help me.”

He goes on, “Still couldn’t find anything though, and we looked for months. Eventually we just kinda figured, y’know, hunters just go missing sometimes. They die on the job and no one ever finds them. Figured that was what happened to Dad. And you were doing so well, y’know, without us, that I just figured—” He breaks off, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel.

Castiel’s gaze has been fixed unwaveringly on Dean throughout his tale. Sam shivers slightly, glad that uncomfortable intensity isn’t being directed his way. Instead of thinking about the angel further, he focuses on his horror at part of Dean’s story, because—

“After all that, you kept hunting?”

There is defensiveness in the lines of Dean’s shoulders. “Of course I did. Someone’s gotta save people from the things that go bump in the night.”

Sam wonders if that’s a rebuke. Well, he’s not going to apologize for keeping himself safe. “ _ Alone?”  _ he demands.

“That does seem very foolish,” the angel weighs in.

“Thank you,” Sam says, as Dean snaps, “Shut up.” Castiel does not look the least bit cowed.

Dean rolls his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes, okay? Not always. Sometimes I went with Bobby, or his buddy Rufus, or someone he introduced me to. There’s a lot more hunters out there than Dad ever let on about. S’all about networking. Hey,” he says brightly. “There’s something we have in common. Don’t you fancy lawyer types go networking all the time? Only difference is you do it over caviar, and I do it over monster guts.”

Sam rolls his eyes heavenwards. “Oh my god.” He slouches back into his seat, destroying the perfect posture he makes a point of practicing. “How much farther to Sioux Falls?”

~~~

  
  


_ John wakes up. For just a moment he allows himself to bask in the lingering warmth of his dream. Already the details are escaping him, but he grasps at faint impressions: Mary, his boys, everything just… better. _

_ As the last memories wisp away, he realizes something is wrong. Abruptly alert, his eyes are open and he’s reaching for a gun that isn’t there. _

_ In fact, the whole damn car isn’t there. _

_ He climbs to his feet, back protesting, and takes stock. He’s still got a knife in his boot at least, so he’s not unarmed. No injuries, so it doesn’t seem likely that a werewolf got the jump on him. Besides, he’d already cleared them out, was just taking one more night to rest before he went back to fetch Dean. He calculates just how drunk he got last night. _

_ But, no. He distinctly remembers having no more than a beer or two at the local dive before bedding down in the car last night. He looks sharply around. _

_ Something seems different about the copse of trees where he’d hidden the car last night, but that could just be the daylight playing tricks on him. Otherwise, it is unmistakably the same place where he’d gone to sleep.  _

_ Except, of course, the car is gone. _

_ Damn it! _

_ He should call Dean. Let him know what’s happened, get his help tracking down whatever asshole stole the Impala. Dean’s attached to that car; he won’t let her stay missing for long. _

_ He reaches for his phone, but it’s not in his back pocket. A quick pat of his other pockets reveals he doesn’t have it at all. Swearing, he remembers that he’d left it out on the seat beside him when he’d gone to sleep. Likely gone the way of the car and his gun, then. _

_ It’s fine. There’s bound to be a payphone in town. Hell, he thinks he saw one at the bar. It’s not even that far to walk. _

~~~

  
  


_ There’s no payphone at the bar. Hell, there’s no payphone anywhere. There’s something off with the town, too, everything slightly different than it was just yesterday. _

_ He needs to get another pair of eyes down here, pronto. Figure out what’s going on. But first, he needs a phone. _

_ A group of teenagers is loitering around the Gas-N-Sip, drinking slushies and looking bored. John could swear it was a Save & Gas yesterday. _

_ “‘Hey,” he asks when he’s close enough, “you kids know where I can find a payphone?” _

_ A muffled ripple of laughter breaks out in the group. _

_ “A payphone?” one little asswipe says between his snickers. “It’s 2019, gramps. Get a cell phone.” He snorts at his own joke, accepting a high-five from one of his smartass friends. _

_ “What the hell do you mean, it’s 2019?” John growls before thinking better of it. _

_ “God, I know.” One girl rolls her eyes, taking a loud slurp of her slushie. “The passage of time is such a drag.” _

_ “Right,” John says. “Thanks,” though there’s nothing to thank them for. If he’s somehow lost sixteen years— _

_ He needs a drink. _

_ Luckily, he fell asleep with his wallet in his pocket. He orders wings, too. His stomach protests the fact that he hasn’t eaten all day, while searching for an elusive payphone. _

_ A glance at a newspaper confirms the year. Even if he does find a phone he can use, no hunter worth his salt would still have the same number sixteen years later. _

_ Which means his best bet is looking up a hunter with a fixed location. And Sioux Falls is only four hours away. _

_ Which means facing Bobby Singer. _

_ He does not relish that prospect. The last time they’d been face-to-face, the ornery old sonuvabitch had chased him off his property with a shotgun aimed at his head. Some argument about the boys, no doubt. Bobby was always harping on him about the way he chose to raise his sons. _

_ But, hell, that was seven? eight? years ago. More. John may have lost the time, but for Bobby it’s been twenty-four years. More than long enough for him to cool down. _

_ He hopes. _

_ He sure as hell doesn’t relish hitchhiking today, though. He’s got enough left for a night’s rest at the fleabag motel, then he’ll grab a ride with one of the truckers heading north. _

~~~

  
  


Of all the greetings he could expect, a faceful of water is hardly the worst. Still, John gives Bobby a sour face as he wipes the water out of his eyes.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

Bobby snorts. “Old friend, my ass. Holy water’s the best you deserve after sixteen years. Your boy was frantic, you know. Hold out your arm.”

John dutifully rolls up his sleeve so Bobby can nick him with iron and silver blades. “Just the one?”  _ Dean, of course.  _ “I guess Sam didn’t care, huh.”

Satisfied that John is human at least, Bobby holds the door open. “Might as well come in and tell me where the hell you’ve been.”

~~~

  
  


John Winchester does not have the answers Castiel needs. That much is obvious from the moment they arrive. Certainly, his reappearance after sixteen years is connected to the temporal paradox that brought him here, but nothing else about him resonates with Cas’s grace in any way.

Castiel exits the car slowly, watching as Dean hurries across to the sagging porch where his father waits, arms raising as if expecting an embrace. At almost the last moment, he visibly checks himself, squaring himself up like a soldier awaiting inspection.  _ That  _ is something that Castiel understands well. What he doesn’t understand is the urge to step closer to Dean, as if that could ease his tension.

“Hi Dad,” Dean says, and something quivers in his lip and his voice, a hastily suppressed emotion.

John seems to look him up and down. “It’s good to see you, son,” he says at last, and Castiel watches the tension drain out of Dean, leaving him looking lighter and younger.

But John’s eyes are already drifting back to the car, his attention caught by the tall figure reluctantly climbing out of the backseat. “Well, I’ll be. Sammy.”

Sam doesn’t make a move to come any closer. “Hello Dad.” He adjusts his glasses—an unnecessary affectation as Castiel is fully aware he has 20:20 vision—and lifts his chin slightly, a challenging gesture. Dean shifts as if he’s contemplating putting himself between the two men.

Before the strange standoff can escalate, the screen door opens, admitting another man—clearly the Bobby Singer Dean had spoken about—onto the porch. He gives Dean a companionable nod and narrows his eyes at John. Bushy eyebrows raise beneath his battered trucker’s cap as he takes in Sam, before his gaze settles on Castiel.

“Who’s the travelling salesman?”

“Oh,” Dean says as if the situation is entirely normal. “This is Cas. He’s an angel.”

~~~

  
  


Once the situation is explained to no one’s satisfaction, they settle in for bowls of Bobby’s famous chili.

_ “I’m actually on a raw food diet,” Sam started to say when Bobby put the pot on. Dean quickly disguised a snort under his breath, but the sharp look Sam had sent him told him he hadn’t gone unheard. He’d snuck a glance at John to see his father’s reaction, but John’s expression gave nothing away. _

_ “Well,” Bobby said. “Chili’s what we got. You’re welcome to pick something from the yard if you don’t want it.” _

_ Sam had glanced out the window at the salvage yard, and the sad little garden that mostly grew potatoes and spell ingredients, and apparently decided his diet could be compromised, just this once. _

“You sure you don’t want to try some?” Dean now offers Castiel, who stands in the corner of the room like a particularly awkward statue.

“It is unnecessary.”

“Does that mean you can’t eat, or don’t want to?” If Dean focuses his attention on getting the recalcitrant angel to loosen up, then he doesn’t have to pay attention to the itch under his skin caused by being in a room with his father and brother. He’s had years to imagine what he would say if he ever saw either of them again, but faced with the reality of it, it all seems to stick in his throat.

Castiel offers him a quizzical glance. “I do not need food.” He hesitates. “Though it is... kind of you to offer,” he adds, as if it is a foreign concept.

Bobby snorts and kicks out a chair. “At least come sit down. Can’t eat with you hovering there.”

Castiel’s brow furrows. “I apologize, he says gravely, sitting down in a rustle of canvas. With his stern, immobile face joining John’s suspicious one and Sam’s moue of displeasure, Dean knows one thing is certain.

This is going to be an awkward meal.

~~~

  
  


After the meal is done, Dean is quick to offer Bobby help with the dishes. Sam and John retreat to the living room, Sam already pulling out his tablet, muttering about not falling behind on his work. If John is hoping for a conversation with his younger son, he’s in for disappointment.

Dean’s not certain where Cas wandered off to.

He brings the stack of bowls to the side and starts a sinkful of soapy water, dropping the cutlery in with a clatter. Bobby is ladling the rest of the leftovers into plastic containers to go in the fridge.

“Figured you’d want more of a chance to talk with your daddy,” he remarks as Dean sets to scrubbing.

Dean shrugs, not meeting his eyes. “I will. I just need to figure out what to say. Sixteen years is a long time. Never figured I’d get this chance, and now—” He huffs in frustration.

Bobby nods, taking up a towel and drying the dishes as Dean washes them. “Sixteen years is a long time,” he echoes. “You’ve changed—grown up a hell of a lot—but for him, it’s only been a day.”

Dean rubs a soapy hand across the back of his neck, ducking his head. “That’s about the shape of it.” He focuses his attention on a particularly stubborn bit of cheese.

Bobby, mercifully, changes the subject. “Didn’t expect you to show up with company,” he grouses. “Dunno where I’m gonna put you all. I’m already expecting that idjit Claire to turn up tonight.”

“Well, Cas doesn’t sleep, if that helps. And I can sleep in Baby if you haven’t got the room.”

Bobby rolls his eyes. “I’m not makin’ you sleep in the car. We’ll make up a bedroll for someone if we have to. Maybe your brother. Isn’t he into all that self-denial crap?”

Dean snickers quietly. “Maybe he sleeps at his treadmill desk.” He’s shown Bobby Sam’s video a few times, too. And maybe he shouldn’t rag on his brother, but a tiny, secret part of him can’t help feeling vindicated that, even face to face with Sam in all his success, Bobby at least still likes Dean best.

He rinses the last pot, and fishes the stopper from the sink, letting the dirty water wash away. “Claire can have my bed. Give her the door that locks. I’ll take the library couch, with or without Sam’s bedroll.”

~~~

  
  


With the dishes done, Dean seeks out Castiel.

He finds the angel in the salvage yard, just outside the circle cast by the floodlights, gazing up at the stars.

“Hello Dean,” he says, without turning to look at him.

Dean stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Hey Cas. Whatcha doing out here?”

“I am attempting to seek out my connection to heaven.” Castiel’s voice is more of a growl than ever, and when he turns, there’s a troubled little vee in his brow.

“No luck?” Dean surmises.

“No luck.” Castiel huffs a sigh that is more human than anything Dean has heard from him thus far. “More and more, I wonder if it’s to do with the temporal paradox at all. It’s like I’m… adrift.”

“Hey, man,” Dean clasps a hand on his shoulder. “Aren’t we all. Sorry the trip out here was a bust. I’m still willing to help you, if I can.”

Castiel looks almost startled by the offer. In fact, Dean would almost swear he looks touched.

They lapse into silence, Dean making no move to return indoors. At last, Castiel tilts his head and regards Dean curiously. “You do not want to spend time with your father?”

Dean laughs uncomfortably, and rubs a hand over his mouth. “Yeah, that’s…” He trails off, unsure how to explain himself. “It’s complicated,” he begins again. Castiel simply continues to watch him with that same unerring gaze. “The way he raised us was—well, it was messed up. Took me a long time to realize that, mostly after he was gone. Thought I’d come to terms with it, but—” he shrugs.  _ That was when I thought I’d never see him again,  _ goes unspoken. He kicks at a loose stone. “I used to worship him. Now I don’t know what to say to him.”

Castiel’s eyes are dark and heavy in the dim light of the salvage yard. “I have never met my father. At least, not that I can recall.”

“Your father,” Dean echoes. “You mean God?”

“Yes,” Castiel says. He swallows, a gesture so uncharacteristically human that Dean is knocked off balance. “I do not know what I would say to him if we met.” The words are quick and furtive, and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly the moment they are out of his mouth. “You must never tell another soul—”

“—that you have doubts? Consider my lips sealed.” Seeing that Castiel still looks nervous at his admission, Dean ducks his head to catch his eyes. “Seriously, your secret is safe with me. Hell, it makes me like you better.”

There.  _ That  _ makes Cas narrow his eyes at him in that familiar suspicious way. Dean barks out a laugh, and Castiel seems to relax just the tiniest fraction. The rumble of an engine and the sudden glare of headlights from the end of the long driveway startles them apart.

“Here comes trouble,” Dean jokes under his breath, already beaming at the prospect of seeing Claire. He’d met her on a hunt a few years back, when she was barely eighteen, reckless, and practically spitting nails at anyone who looked at her sideways. He’d liked her immediately, and they’ve worked together a time or three. The two of them usually get on like a house on fire.

He only knows bits and pieces of her story—for all their kinship, Claire can be prickly and close-mouthed—but he knows enough to know that she’s in the hunter life because a monster took her dad. Which is why he’s surprised when, as her door slams shut and he and Castiel step into the circle cast by the floodlight, her eyes go wide.

Eyes locked on Castiel, her lip quivers as she utters one word.

“Dad?”


	3. Chapter 3

_ “Dad?” _

For a split second of painful, soaring hope, Claire really believes it’s him. Her father, restored at last. But then, the—the  _ creature _ —wearing her father’s face tilts its head in that alien way she remembers so vividly, and repeats those words that had seared themselves permanently onto the heart of the eleven-year-old she had been.

“I am not your father.”

Sudden rage burns through her like a wildfire. “ _ You,”  _ she snarls, lunging at the monster that stole her father, silver blade already drawn. Strong arms restrain her before she can get within slicing distance, and she hisses and spits against Dean’s hold.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean says low in her ear. “Claire. Care to tell me why you’re attacking Cas?”

Betrayal is like a bucket full of cold water dumped on her head. “Cas?” It has a name?  _ Dean  _ is on a first name basis with it. “That  _ thing _ stole my father.  Let me kill it!”

Dean does not release her. Instead, he turns to the monster that looks like her father, and asks quietly, sounding almost concerned, “Cas?”

A troubled expression passes over the monster’s face. “I—I do not know. This girl—I can sense that she is one of my potential vessels. Her lineage—it is entirely possible that my current vessel is her father. But,” he addresses these last words to Claire, his eyes heavy and earnest, “I do not remember. I am sorry.”

“Your vessel,” Claire repeats flatly. “And you don’t even care enough to  _ remember _ ? Give me one good reason I shouldn’t run you through right now.” Dean has still not released his grip on her, and she doesn’t understand why the hunter who has been a friend and (not that she’d tell him) mentor to her is defending this monster.

“For one thing, your knife would not harm me,” is the matter-of-fact answer.

“I’ve got a gun, too.” She draws the weapon and cocks it at his chest.

“Yeah, that won’t work, either,” Dean tells her. “I unloaded a clip in his chest first thing.  _ Nada. _ ”

“Why are you  _ helping _ him?” Claire demands, whirling in his grip so she can glare into his eyes better.

“Claire. I don’t know what happened between Cas and your dad. Cas doesn’t know either. That’s what we’re trying to find out. Something is wrong with his memory. But if he did take your father for a vessel, it was with consent. Cas isn’t a monster; he’s an angel. Castiel.”

She scoffs. “I thought you said those didn’t exist.”

Dean shrugs as best he can without releasing her. “Turns out I was wrong. Look, if I let you go, do you promise you won’t try to kill Cas? At least not until we’ve all figured out what’s going on?”

She huffs, trying to pretend that tears aren’t prickling at her eyes. As if any of this makes things better. But she can lie in wait, wait for the angel to reveal his agenda. She fixes her gaze stubbornly over Dean’s shoulder. “Fine. I’m going inside to see Bobby.”

Dean releases her, and she marches past him, towards the house. 

“You’ve got my room for the night,” he says to her back.

She doesn’t look back. “Whatever.” 

“Claire.” The so-called angel’s gravelly voice causes her steps to falter. “I am sorry about your father.” 

She sniffs, saying nothing, a hot tear searing its way down her cheek as she continues up the porch steps.

~~~

 

Sam had less work waiting for him than expected, his very capable paralegals and the other lawyers at his firm having taken on his caseload when he’d left with an abrupt message to his secretary that he had to take care of a family emergency. If she had been surprised by this, given his very public views on family as a detriment to success, she was professional enough to hide her reaction. He makes a note to give her a good bonus this year.

Now, with nothing more to occupy himself, he’s faced with the uncomfortable prospect of making conversation with his estranged father. John has been transported sixteen years from the past, and still Sam doesn’t know what to say to the man. He avoids his father’s gaze and casts about for something else to occupy his time.

After cleaning up the dishes with Dean, Bobby had returned to the library. He had immediately begun pulling books from the shelves and piles, seemingly at random, but with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was looking for.

‘What you got there?” John asks, when Bobby sets the new stack on his already cluttered desk and reaches for the first one.

“Lore on angels, anything I can think of. Enochian dictionary. The Bible. Gonna see if I can find something that can help out that flyboy Dean brought with him.”

“I’ll help,” Sam surprises himself by volunteering. “I’m good at research, and it will go faster with two.”

“Make that three,” John grunts. “Toss me a book, Bobby, and let’s see what we can find.”

Together, they dig into the lore, and it’s almost companionable. Soon, Sam is swept up in the familiarity of it. He’d spent many long nights in undergrad and then law school buried in texts as dense as these, tearing his hair out, but genuinely enjoying the challenge. Often, Jessica would have to cajole him into taking a break. 

He shuts that line of thought down ruthlessly. In the end, Jessica hadn’t understood the sacrifices he needed to make for success, hadn’t understood the need for the secrets he kept. She’d been the one to end things, but it had been for the best.

Soon, though, Sam is buried in deeper memories, of searching through endless lore books in endless motel rooms and libraries, even in this room before John and Bobby had had their falling out. Dean always got impatient with the research part, wanting to get out there and act, but as much as he’d hated the life, Sam had enjoyed the knowledge and piecing together the puzzles. 

This particular puzzle will be trickier to solve than most, but he is jotting down notes on the Heavenly hierarchies when the door slams open and a blonde girl storms in, tear tracks on her face. She freezes in the doorway when she sees Sam and John. After a moment, she recovers her composure. Crossing her arms, she sneers, “Who the hell are you? You angels, too? Whose body are you wearing?”

Bobby snorts, seemingly not put off by her attitude. “These two are about as far as you can get from angels. This is Sam and John, Dean’s brother and dad.”

“Huh.” She looks John full in the face. “I heard you were dead.” To Bobby she adds, “I’m gonna crash in Dean’s room. Don’t let the angel near me. Or these creeps.” She turns on her heel and heads for the stairs, dragging a ratty duffle bag behind her. It hits every step on the way up, thudding oddly against the risers.

“That’s Claire,” Bobby says by way of introduction. “Don’t mind her. Good hunter, but got a temper like a wounded bear.”

“Isn’t she a little young to be hunting?” John asks, and Sam can’t help the scoff that escapes him.

“Really, Dad? You had me hunting at thirteen, and Dean younger than that.”

John bristles, but Bobby interrupts before a real fight can brew. “I’d like to see you tell her she’s too young to hunt. Better make sure she’s unarmed first; she’s as like to shoot you as not. Now, are you idjits done posturing, or can we get back to figuring out the mystery of Feathers out there?”

Suitably chastened, John and Sam return their attention to the research, and slowly the tension dissipates from the room. Sam loses himself in the work. At some point, a large Rottweiler slinks into the rooms from who knows where and lays its head heavily on Sam’s knee. He should be worried about it leaving hair on his pants, but instead he finds himself idly scratching it behind the ears, almost smiling as it lets out a deep, doggy sigh.

Dean and Castiel come inside sometime later, pausing for Dean to exchange a few quiet words with Bobby. “Come on,” he says to Castiel when they’re done. “I’ve got to brush my teeth before I find the spare blankets.” He heads up the stairs, and Castiel follows him, although he needs neither blankets or dental hygiene. Sam raises a bemused eyebrow, though no one is paying attention to him.

Bobby closes up his book and stretches with a loud groan. “That’s it for me. I’m gonna turn in for the night. John, you can keep the spare room I gave you last night. Sam, you’re in here with Dean. The two of you can duke it out for the couch.” He pats his thigh, “C’mon Biden, bedtime.” 

With a soulful look in his eyes, the dog extracts himself from the head scritches that Sam has been bestowing and shuffles after Bobby. Sam finds he misses the companionship already.

~~~

  
  


Castiel is unsettled. He does not care for the feeling.

He stands alone in the scrapyard, looking up at the stars once again. His connection to heaven remains severed, and he has given up feeling for the threads. He does not like this mystery of his existence, does not like the missing pieces in his memories.

That girl, Claire. He can still feel her raw hurt prickling at his skin. For a moment, she’d been all soaring hope, and then heartbreak and bitter rage. 

He feels… guilt. If her father really is his vessel—He wonders how he could have been so careless as to lose him. He dislikes this lack of answers.

After she had stormed off into the house, he had felt the urge to go after her, to explain himself, to explain the workings of angels. He wonders how far he would have gotten before the gaps in his memories tripped him up. 

Instead, Dean had halted him with a hand on his shoulder. Castiel had been startled at how natural the touch had felt. “Let her go,” Dean had advised gruffly.”

“But I could explain—”

“She’s grieving, Cas. Let her go.”

“I did not set out to hurt her, but it seems I have anyway.”

“I know, buddy. We’ll figure this out. Find out what happened with her dad. Maybe you can even give him back to her. That oughta polish up that halo a little.”

Castiel had frowned at Dean. “My ‘halo’ is made entirely of celestial light. It does not need polishing.”

Dean had laughed then, a bright peal of sound that fascinated Castiel more than it should have. Humans had been laughing, often over the most frivolous things, for millions of years; there was no reason why this one particular human doing so should be anything special.

But despite himself, he continues to feel this inexplicable pull to Dean. There is something about the man that resonates in him, somewhere deeper even than his grace. It should concern him more.

Even now, he yearns to go peek in at his sleeping form, see for himself the life in that body, the bright gleam of his soul. 

He doesn’t. The night before, they had stopped in another hotel, this one much more spacious and sanitary than the previous—Sam’s choice—and Castiel had stayed in Dean’s room, while Sam took his own. Tonight Dean and Sam are sharing the library. Dean might have been okay with Castiel borrowing his laptop again to watch another movie while he slept but Sam had made it clear that if he had to share an already public room with his brother, he did not want Castiel hovering over them while they slept. Humans have so many rules about what is creepy, and it seems much of Castiel’s behaviour falls into that category. Dean, at least doesn’t seem to mind, or had adjusted quickly in the few days they have been travelling together. If anything, he seems amused by it.

The longer he is alone with his thoughts, the more the situation with Heaven and his vessel weighs on him. Increasingly, he feels like something is deeply wrong. 

Doubts are dangerous things. Angels should not have them. And yet—

If he cannot contact Heaven itself, maybe he can reach out discreetly to someone. Someone he can trust. He can’t make contact directly, of course, but perhaps—

~~~

  
  


Dean wakes far too early in the morning, stretching against the stiffness caused by sleeping on Bobby’s lumpy old library couch. He’s getting too old for this. Sam, he notices grumpily, is just sitting up from his spot on the floor, looking spry and well-rested. 

More off-putting, however, is the fact that an angel is standing over him, and not even the kind with fluffy wings and a lacy g-string, which is an utter waste. Castiel is peering intently into his face as he yawns and rubs a hand over the pillow creases. It’s giving him a flashback to how they met.

‘You have a strange way of getting your jollies,” he tells Cas, smirking through another yawn. Castiel frowns, the lines in his forehead deepening, and Dean gets serious. “What’s up, man?”

“Dean,” Castiel says. “How do you feel about prayer?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. This is a short one. Thank you to MalMuses for beta-ing this chapter.

“So, let me get this straight?” Dean says, after Castiel has gone through his plan. “If I pray to this guy, Balthazar, he can hear me, and he’ll answer my prayer?”

Castiel crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s the hope.”

“So if I prayed to you, you’d have to come answer my prayer?”

Castiel looks an inch away from smiting him. “I wouldn’t have to do anything. I’d hear you, but I’d be free to ignore you.”

Dean purses his lips. “So what’s to stop this Balthazar from ignoring me?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’m hoping that if you mention my name, he’ll care enough to come.”

“Oh, well,” Dean mutters. “That’s reassuring. Alright, so, how do I do this? And do I get to shower first? Gotta make a good first impression.” He scratches at his stomach, and surreptitiously takes a sniff of his armpit. Yep. A shower is definitely called for.

“Balthazar is an angel,” is Castiel’s impatient reply. “He won’t be concerned with your bodily odours.”

“Bodily—!” Dean squawks. He catches his brother smirking at him and flips him the bird. “You sure do know how to make a guy feel pretty, Cas.”

“You are already a very aesthetically appealing human,” Castiel says with a roll of his eyes. “I did not think you needed to be informed. But very well.” He sighs, a put-upon sound. “I suppose you may bathe yourself before praying if your sense of self is so deeply affected. I will wait for you in the salvage yard.” With that, he turns on his heel and, evidently not trusting his wings enough to fly at the moment, walks deliberately outside.

Dean points a finger at his brother. At some point, Bobby’s dog Biden has snuck back into the room and gravitated to Sam, who is absently scratching his ears, while his eyes shine with barely hidden amusement at Dean’s expense. “Shut it.”

“I said nothing.” Sam holds up his hands in a display of innocence, much to Biden’s displeasure. Sam goes back to scratching. “What are the chances Bobby has ingredients for a smoothie?”

Dean makes a noncommittal noise, stretching as he rises to his feet. “Think I might have seen some high-fibre yogurt in the fridge. Y’know, to keep him regular.” He snickers to himself as he ascends the stairs, ready to claim the shower.

~~~

 

“What’s for breakfast?” the blonde girl—Claire, John remembers—asks around a yawn as she steps into the kitchen where he has just started searching for something to cook up. Though it’s early, she’s already dressed, and her eyes are heavily ringed in black liner. Trying to look tough, he figures. Whether she actually is, that’s still to be seen.

“Looks like it’s eggs and bacon,” he grunts, swinging the fridge door shut. “You eat meat?”

“Sure.” She straddles a chair backwards, leaning over the wooden top. “Do you?”

Well, she doesn’t take any of his shit. He’ll give her that. He opens the lower cupboards to find Bobby’s battered old frying pan, right where he’s always kept it. He pulls that out, and the toaster—a fancy chrome brick with too many dials. Not something Bobby bought for himself, that much is obvious.

“The angel’s out in the yard with Dean,” he tells her as he melts some butter in the pan. “They went west, I think, if you want to keep away.”

She narrows her eyes at him for a long moment, before jerking her chin down in a decisive little nod. “Thanks.”

They lapse into silence. She picks at her hangnails while he scrambles eggs and cooks up a mountain of bacon. Bobby will want some, and so will Dean when he gets done with whatever the hell it is he and the angel are up to out in the salvage yard. He’d caught Sam eating a strawberry yogurt earlier, so he figures he’s out.

“So,” Claire drawls as he dishes out their plates. “How come Dean always told me you were dead? I mean, I hear you wouldn’t win father of the year, but what, you just dropped off the grid for sixteen years?”

John fixes her with a sharp look, but accepts the hit. “I fell asleep in 2003 and woke up in 2019.”

“Huh. You don’t say.” She shoves a strip of bacon in her mouth and chews in a way that’s eerily reminiscent of Dean, though at least her mouth stays shut. After Mary, teaching his kids table manners had been the least of his concerns.

Swallowing around her mouthful, Claire adds, “Y’know, my dad disappeared in 2004 and I only just found him, too. Only there’s an angel wearing him, and he says he’s not at home. And you want to know what the worst thing is?” She laughs bitterly. “Turns out, he went willingly.”

~~~

 

“So,” Dean asks, pacing a wide circle in a cleared area of the salvage yard, “is there any particular way I’m supposed to do this? Fold my hands, kneel, say some magic words?” 

Castiel squints at him, unsure if he is being made fun of. “It doesn’t matter what you do with your body. You just say his name and speak with intent.”

“You sure about that? ‘Cause I could see myself getting on my knees for an angel, least if they all look like you.” He winks and now Castiel knows for sure that he is making fun.

“Angels all use different vessels. There is no reason that Balthazar’s would look anything like mine.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.” Dea’s grin is cheesy, and Castiel breathes out heavily through his vessel’s nose.

“Just pray, Dean.”

“Alright, alright, sorry.” Dean scrunches up his face and flexes his hands in and out of fists three times. “Okay, here goes nothing. Dear Balthazar, angel of, uh, Heaven, I guess, hope you’ve got your angel radio tuned in.”

~~~

 

It’s been a long time since Balthazar has had a prayer directed to him specifically. The general prayers filter through of course, but he can usually ignore those, leaving them to angels whose talents are more suited to those requests—or to go unanswered, as is often the will of heaven. But as individual prayers go, he is not well-known among the humans, and they rarely have reason to call on him directly.

But even the rarity of a direct prayer alone is not enough for him to really sit up and take notice, nor is the unusual style of praying. What really catches his attention is the man’s appeal.

“Hope you’ve got your angel radio tuned in,” the man prays, “‘cause I’ve got your buddy, Castiel here, and I think he could use your help. Uh, I’m at Singer Salvage, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. D’you need an address or—”

But Balthazar is already there, wickedly amused at the way the man’s green eyes go wide and he stumbles back a step.

“Well,” Balthazar says, when the man says nothing, merely closing his hanging jaw with a snap. He lets his eyes roam the maze of bent and rusty metal piled high. “You say you’re here with—”

If angels could be said to have such a thing as stomachs, the bottom would have dropped out of his.

“Good Lord, Cassie,” he whispers, taking in the mangled and mutilated true form beyond Castiel’s vessel. Scars new and old cover his ethereal form, and many of his eyes are glued shut with silvery blood, or else torn out entirely. His foreheads each bear a crown of holes, as if from a drill. “What the hell happened to you?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait on this chapter. I've had a lot on my plate, and a lot of writing deadlines to meet before I could get back to it.
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful[DarkHeartInTheSky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkHeartInTheSky) for beta-reading this chapter!

_ "Good Lord, Cassie. What the hell happened to you?" _

Dean isn't sure what he'd expected from Castiel's angel friend, but a V-neck wearing douchebag with a British accent was not it. All that disappears, however, with the sick horror written across Balthazar's face as he looks at Castiel.

"The fuck do you mean?" Despite the unease he feels, Dean makes a show of raking his eyes up and down Cas's body appreciatively. "He looks pretty damn good to me."

"He means my true form," Castiel answers before Balthazar can do more than bristle. "Don't you? There's something wrong with my true form." There's something dark in his eyes that has Dean itching to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. He doesn't quite dare, however, though he takes a tiny step closer at the dismay in Balthazar's voice.

"You mean you don't know? Cassie..." The angel swallows heavily.

"Tell me," Castiel says, his tone firm, though Dean thinks he hears the faintest waver in it. "I'm—there is something wrong. Pieces missing. I need to know."

"You can't see it." Balthazar sounds shaken. "It's bad, Castiel."

Dean listens in mute horror as Balthazar describes the mutilation of Castiel's true form. Castiel merely listens, his face inscrutable, seemingly as stoic as ever. Despite his dispassionate reaction, however, Dean can tell he's deeply disturbed.

"So," Dean says, doing what he does when faced with a problem—try to solve it. "Who do we think did this to Cas? A demon?"

"No," is Castiel's immediate response.

"A demon couldn't do this." Balthazar adds, his forehead creased in a frown. 

"The only one who could," Castiel says, "is…"

When Castiel trails off, reluctant to finish the sentence, Dean draws the clear conclusion. "...Another angel," he finishes for Cas.

"Yes." Balthazar's lips are pressed into a thin line, the furrow in his brow deepening. "The question is who, and why?"

~~~

 

When Bobby gets in from handling an early morning tow job, he finds John Winchester and Claire Novak in his kitchen, doing dishes, which is a sight he never expected to see in his life.

"Been cookin'?" he asks, and John turns from where he's scrubbing a frying pan, to indicate a foil-covered plate on the table.

"There's bacon and scrambled eggs. Help yourself."

"You're damn right, I'll help myself," Bobby mutters, filling a plate of his own. "It's my goddamn food. You'd think I was running a halfway house for wayward hunters or something."

"Aren't you?" Claire asks, voice syrupy sweet, undercut with a bitter edge. She's obviously in a fighting spirit this morning, but it’s too damn early for him to be bothered. He’ll figure out what’s eating her later. For now, Bobby just grunts at her and takes his plate through to the library.

There's no escape for him there, either. Sam Winchester sits on his couch, engrossed in his laptop, an empty yogurt container forgotten beside him. Cherry flavour. Great. His favourite flavour, and one he normally doesn't need to worry about saving for himself. It's not like Dean's a big one for yogurt.

But Sam's not Dean, and as far as Bobby can tell, he's been using the last two decades to prove to himself that he's as far from Dean as it's possible to be.

Bobby's not too impressed with Sam, truth be told, but he used to like him when he was a snot-nosed kid, and he pulled his weight with the research yesterday and hasn't made too much noise about getting back to his highfalutin law career yet, so Bobby's prepared to give him a chance.

The kid's gonna give himself a permanent wrinkle if he doesn't stop frowning at his screen that way.

"What’cha got there?" Bobby asks, settling in at his desk with the plate of bacon and eggs, reaching for the next book on his pile.

"Hmmm? Oh." Sam looks up from the computer screen, seemingly just noticing that there's someone else in the room. Hunter instincts long gone lax on that one. "I thought I'd switch up the research, try some other sources. Look what I found."

Bobby swallows a forkful of lukewarm eggs. “Think I can read it all the way over there? You’ve got the good legs. Bring it here.”

Obligingly, Sam unfolds his tall frame from the sagging couch and carries the laptop over to the desk, setting it down in a space Bobby clears so he can see the screen.

“ _ My Husband Was Taken by Angels! _ ” proclaims the headline of a trashy tabloid article. The article is dated from ten years ago and features a family photo, presumably taken before the aforementioned angelic kidnapping. The man in the photo bears an uncanny resemblance to Castiel.

“ _ Jimmy Novak, before the incident _ ” the caption reads,  _ “with wife, Amelia, and daughter Claire. _ ”

“Well, shit,” Bobby mutters under his breath. “No wonder that hellion’s been so punchy since she got here.”

“What’s that?” Sam asks, still reading.

Bobby points to the young girl in the picture. “That’s Claire. Our Claire. Which means…”

“Castiel’s vessel is her dad.” Sam puts the pieces together and curses. “Are we still sure we can trust Castiel?”

“Your brother does,” Bobby says in a tone that brooks no argument. 

“Well, yes.” Sam fails to get the memo and tries arguing anyway. “But are we really going to go with what Dean thinks? He’s—well, he’s  _ Dean. _ ”

Bobby harrumphs. “I’m giving you a pass, only because you haven’t been around the last few years to know who your brother is, but Dean’s got the best instincts of anyone I know, hunter or not. So if Dean says he trusts the angel, I trust the angel. Got it?”

“Look,” Sam protests. “I’m not saying I think Dean is stupid. I just—”

“You’re used to thinkin’ you’re the smart one. I know. But don’t go underestimating your brother. He’s a damn good man, who’s done the best he could with the cards he was dealt, and done a damn fine job of it, too.”

Consternation is written across Sam’s face. “He’s wanted in fifty states.”

Bobby snorts. “Said he was smart. Never said he wasn’t reckless. Now let’s see if this rag of yours has any answers for us.” He pushes aside his empty plate and tugs the shiny Mac closer to him, the better to read the sensationalist drivel. 

He’s got a pair of reading glasses in his desk drawer, but he prefers not to wear them when anyone’s around. The first time Dean had caught him wearing them, he’d called him “Professor Singer” until Bobby had kicked him out on another hunt. He doesn’t pull them out now, preferring to squint at the text.

He only gets two paragraphs in before Claire appears in the doorway. “Dishes are done. What’re you doing in here?” 

Before Bobby or Sam can click away from the page, she rounds the desk and gets a good look at the screen. “What the actual fuck. Do you normally just read up on your acquaintances’ private shit?”

“We just stumbled across this, trying to find out about angels,” Sam starts to explain, but her face just twists into a sneer.

“Save it, TED Talk. I’m getting out of here. Fuck you all.” With that, she disappears up the stairs. Without a word, Bobby clicks on the X, shutting down the article.

~~~

 

If there’s one thing Balthazar has no interest in doing, it’s a covert spying operation—especially not against the higher-ups in Heaven—but that’s exactly what he finds himself agreeing to. Castiel’s strange little human seems grimly pleased when he sighs deeply and says, “Oh alright, for you, I’ll do it. But if I get caught, you know it’s my head on the chopping block, right?”

The fact is, he has no one to blame but himself. As they had searched for reasons another angel might have harmed Castiel, Balthazer himself had been the one to venture forth the theory.

_ “You don’t think it’s tied to your reeducation, do you?” he’d asked. _

_ Castiel’s brow had pinched. “I’ve never been reeducated,” he’d said slowly. “Have I?” _

_ Grimly, Balthazar had nodded. “You have. More than once. You don’t remember?” _

_ No, Castiel did not remember. And no, Balthazar didn’t know what he had been reeducated for, or how often, or why. But it had seemed significant. _

_ "We need those answers,” the human had stated. “How do we get them?” But his gaze had already been turned on Balthazar, as if he expected him to volunteer. _

_ Balthazar had felt his feathers ruffle, but Castiel had been looking at him, too, his oldest friend, with all of his eyes which would still open. It was that sight, the horror of Castiel’s damaged form, that had him giving in.  _

After Balthazar agrees, they move on to strategizing, and thank God that the damage done to Castiel’s memory does not seem to have affected his skill as a strategist. With Balthazar filling in the blanks where he is missing knowledge of the workings of Heaven, and Dean providing surprisingly useful tactical suggestions of his own, they have soon cobbled together a plan.

Castiel has been his usual stoic, frowny self, but there’s a new, hidden tension in the way he holds himself, his ruined wings practically vibrating with it. The human can’t possibly see it, but somehow he knows to step closer, as if he could steady Castiel with his puny mortal frame. Oddly enough, the set of Castiel’s—his vessel’s—shoulders, seems to loosen, just a touch. 

Balthazar’s not sure he likes what’s happening there, especially if Castiel is already in trouble with Heaven. Humanity is meant to be shepherded from a distance, they’ve often been told.

But then, Castiel’s always had difficulty following that particular edict, Balthazar recalls. The odd part is that Castiel does not seem to remember this himself.

Still. “Be careful there,” he admonishes Castiel, with a significant tilt of his head towards Dean. “It won’t go over well in Heaven.” But Castiel merely regards him uncomprehendingly, and that worries him as much as anything, because Castiel has never been obtuse. Balthazar sighs and prepares to take flight. “Take care of yourself, Castiel.”

With a flap of his wings, he ascends to Heaven.

 

~~~

 

Castiel watches his friend disappear through the planes of existence with a tug of wistfulness and pain. He misses Heaven, misses his place among the angels, and yet the memories are tainted by the knowledge that Heaven is not as he remembers it. He has forgotten things, been made to forget things, been reeducated several—perhaps many—times without knowing it, without even a recollection of his crimes.

He has been mutilated, by another of his kind, perhaps even on the orders of Heaven itself. 

He cannot go home, and even if he could, he no longer knows if he wants to. It’s a heavy feeling, a rock in his chest. Now that Balthazar has alerted him to the damage, he feels the ache through the whole of his true form, bleeding into his vessel and making his shoulders hunch.

“You doing okay, buddy?” Dean’s voice cuts through his thoughts, startling his attention back to this plane. “How you holding up?”

His whole existence has proven to be a lie. How could he possibly be holding up?

Dean’s presence bleeds warmth and comfort at his side, which Castiel longs to lean into. But he remembers Balthazar’s words.  _ “Be careful there. It won’t go over well in Heaven.”  _ Castiel thinks he begins to understand. He can’t take comfort here.

“I think,” he says, “that I would like to be alone.” It’s a lie, but Dean takes him at his word.

“Just don’t take too long. Don’t get to brooding,” he admonishes not unkindly. “I’ll come check on you in a bit.” He pats Castiel on the shoulder, his hand burning a brand that seems to touch far deeper than Castiel’s vessel, and disappears between the stacks of car parts that obscure the path to the house.

Castiel watches him go.

~~~

 

Dean’s deep in thought as he pushes open the door of the house. On autopilot, his feet carry him towards the kitchen. If there’s nothing else he can do for Castiel right now, the least he can do is rustle up some grub for himself and the other humans. He’s not expecting someone else to have beat him to it.

“Food’s on the table,” John greets him as he enters the kitchen, and Dean does a double-take as he catches sight of his father seated at the table reading one of Bobby’s old books. There’s a plate in front of him covered in aluminum foil, and the smell of bacon still lingers in the air.

Dean makes a noise of assent, filling a plate for himself and digging out a jug of orange juice from the fridge, all while keeping a wary eye on the way his father watches him work. He pops his plate in the microwave to warm, drumming his fingers against his thighs as he waits.

His back is half turned to John, but he still freezes when his father clears his throat.

“So, Dean,” John’s voice sounds unsure, in a way Dean can not recall ever hearing it before. “Do you think we could talk?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like it's time for a new chapter! Thanks for being patient with my slow writing of this fic. In this chapter: awkward conversations, a very special cameo, and a moment I hope you've all been looking forward to.
> 
> Thank you so much to [Pen_and_Paper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pen_and_Paper/pseuds/Pen_and_Paper) for beta-reading this chapter! I also owe a huge thank you to my husband [fictoryismine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictoryismine/pseuds/fictoryismine) who successfully identified Claire's car in episode 12x16 in just half and hour, after I'd been trying to figure it out for a week.

_ Do you think we can talk? _

John takes note of the way Dean freezes momentarily, his shoulders automatically pulling back, his stance straightening into that of a soldier. Before Dean can answer, the shrill beeping of the microwave cuts through the tense air of the kitchen, and John watches Dean’s shoulders relax forward again as he busies himself with collecting his plate, doctoring his eggs with pepper and tabasco sauce, all the while seeming to avoid his father’s eye.

It’s not until Dean is sitting at the table, his first forkful of food shoved into his mouth, that he can no longer avoid John’s eyes on him. “Sure, we can talk,” he answers around a mouthful of scrambled eggs, but he doesn’t offer anything else.

There’s a beer cracked beside Dean’s glass of orange juice, and John nods to it. “Bit early for it.”

Dean shrugs. “Bobby’s coffee maker’s crap. Won’t let me replace it, but it always tastes like a tire fire.”

John grunts. “Fair enough.”

Dean doesn’t say anything.

John doesn’t say anything.

Dean pops a strip of bacon in his mouth, chews slowly.

John clears his throat.

“So…” says Dean.

“So,” says John. They’ve never been big talkers in the Winchester family. “I guess you kept hunting.”

“Yessir.” There’s a wariness in the way Dean holds himself with John that John doesn’t like. He wonders if it’s new, or if he just never noticed it.

“See you kept the car. Been keepin’ her up good?”

“I try.”

The conversation dies. From upstairs comes the slam of a wooden door shutting harder than necessary, and then the stomp-thud of someone clomping down the stairs, dragging a heavy bag behind them. The footsteps pause at the front door.

“I’m leaving,” Claire Novak calls, a dangerous edge to her voice. “Going hunting. Some of us still kill monsters, not help them.”

Silence rings from the kitchen and the library.

“Fine,” she huffs. There’s the dragging noise of her grabbing hold of her bag again, and then the door is slamming behind her. Dean’s shoulders slump and his mouth presses into a thin line. Shortly thereafter, an engine starts and her car is roaring away, disappearing down the long driveway towards the road.

“Feisty kid,” John comments mildly. “I kind of like her.”

Dean snorts. “She’s fuckin’ pissed at me that I won’t let her off Cas.”

John leans back in his chair. “Thought angels were hard to kill.”

Dean lets out a huff of air. “There’s that, too. Mostly she’s mad ‘cause his mystery vessel may have been her dad.”

John scratches at the side of his head. “Yeah, she mentioned something like that. Right after she said I wasn’t, what was it? Father of the year…”

He lets the sentence hang, watches Dean avert his eyes, watches him stuff his cheeks with food like a chipmunk to avoid answering.

“I knew Sammy felt that way,” John continues when it’s clear Dean isn’t going to answer, “but I thought you and I were on the same page. The family business. Getting the thing that got your mom. I thought I was raising you boys up to protect yourselves.”

“You were,” Dean says, swallowing the last of his mouthful sharply. “You did. It’s just, y’know, in hindsight, some things were…” he makes a vague gesture with his hand, his mouth pulling into a grimace that John supposes is meant to convey the parts of his parenting that were less than ideal. There were the motel rooms, he concedes. And the drinking. And he wasn’t the cuddliest of parents. Then there was that time he’d left Dean in that boys’ home after he stole a loaf of bread.

Okay, so he might have been kind of a shitty dad. But. “You never seemed to mind.”

Dean’s shoulders hunch uncomfortably towards his ears and he pushes his plate away, still half full. “What was I gonna do? Fight you like Sam? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The past’s in the past. Sammy’s raking in the big bucks, and I turned out okay, all things considered. Dunno if you’ll like who I am these days, but I’ve got used to me.”

John snorts. “You just told me I was a crappy father, and I’m still here talking to you. What do you think you’re gonna say that’s gonna piss me off so bad?”

Dean straightens his shoulders, looks his father in the eye. “Well for one,” he drawls, “I’m bisexual.”

Well, huh.

~~~

 

Claire Novak speeds down the road, her foot like lead on the accelerator as she urges her shitty little Subaru Loyale to go faster. The sooner she can get away from this place, the better. There’s a thick tangled bramble patch growing in her chest, choking her. Everything’s ruined, the sting of betrayal coming from all sides: Dean, Bobby,  _ her father— _

She’d learned to live with her father’s absence, her mother’s abandonment. She’d learned to tuck the pain away and keep her head down, keep her focus on destroying the monsters of the world before anyone else’s life could be destroyed. But then the angel had shown up, and everything had been ripped to shreds. Suddenly, she’s bleeding from raw, re-opened wounds again.

She’d had to get away. She doesn’t have a hunt yet, but there’s nothing stopping her from finding one. She’ll drive until she’s tired, then stop at a Waffle House or a Denny’s, one with wifi, and she’ll search out a new case. Anything to keep herself busy.

She’s so focused on putting distance between herself and Singer Salvage that she almost doesn’t hear the sound of a siren until it’s right up behind her.

“Shit,” she swears, pounding a fist on the steering wheel. “Goddammit.” She grits her teeth and pulls the car over onto the soft shoulder. This is the last fucking thing she needs.

The cop car pulls up behind her, and turns off the siren, though the lights continue flashing. Claire hears the slam of the driver’s side door, and swipes at her hair to get it off her face. Her arms comes away wet and streaked with black from her eyeliner.  _ Great.  _ She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

Before she can compose herself, there’s a tap on her driver’s side window, and Claire rolls it down to face the music.

“Hi there,” the cop looking at her is a middle aged woman with short dark hair and a no-nonsense kind of face, though it softens in sympathy as she takes in Claire’s sorry state. Claire swipes angrily at her eyes again. The cop flips open her badge. “Sheriff Jody Mills. Can I see your licence and registration please?”

Nodding, not trusting herself to speak, Claire fumbles to grab the documents and pass them over.

The sheriff hums as she looks them over, then nods decisively, and hands them back. “You know I’m gonna have to write you a ticket, right? You were doing eighty in a sixty-five zone.” Despite her words, her voice is kind. 

Claire nods again.

“Good,” says the sheriff. “Now, are you alright? You seem a little upset to be driving.”

Claire sniffs. “I’m fine. Just in a rush to get out of town.”

“Uh huh.” Sheriff Mills presses her lips into a skeptical line and raises an eyebrow. “Well, do you have time for a coffee? Steady your nerves before you get back on the road.”

Claire hesitates. As a hunter, she has plenty of reason not to trust cops, but she’s gotten pretty far trusting her instincts, and Sheriff Mills really does seem genuine. Besides, Bobby’s coffee maker would be better off in a trash heap, and she really could use some caffeine. Still—

“You buying?” she asks, suspicious.

“Sure.” Sheriff Mills looks amused. “I’ll spot you a dollar-fifty drip coffee at Roy’s.”

“I’m not gonna tell you what’s wrong,” Claire warns.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” The sheriff scribbles up a ticket in her pad and tears it off, passing it to Claire. “Follow me. No speeding this time.”

Despite herself, Claire manages a weak smile.

~~~

 

After the fiasco with the tabloid article, Sam has gone back to searching through Bobby’s old books, and Bobby had taken off to deal with a call for the legitimate side of his business, something about some part that he’d rattled off the name of, and then looked at Sam like he expected him to know what he was talking about.

“Uh huh,” Sam had said, and Bobby had rolled his eyes.

“Forgot I wasn’t talking to your brother. I’ll be in the garage if I’m needed.” He’d taken himself and his dirty trucker hat off. A scrabbling of toenails from the hallway signified Biden getting up to follow him. Sam tried not to be disappointed.  As uncomfortable as he was with everyone here, the chunky dog at least had been good company.

With nothing else to do, he buried himself in a tome about the Principalities. Really, he should start thinking about getting back to his real life—he wouldn’t kid himself into thinking that his research was doing a whole lot of good—but something still seemed to be tethering him here. 

And some of this lore was fascinating, even if none of it was  _ useful. _

He was so absorbed in reading and jotting down his notes that he wouldn’t have even noticed he was no longer alone if it weren’t for the heavy sag of the sofa as his father sank down on the opposite end from him.

“So,” John said without preamble. “Your brother tells me he’s bisexual.”

Sam put his book down. “Who,  _ Dean?” _ His hyper-masculine, perfect-soldier brother. It hardly seemed likely.

_ You haven’t been around the last few years to know who your brother is,  _ Bobby’s voice reminds him, much to his discomfort.

John looks at him oddly. “You know about another brother I could mean?” There’s a weird edge to his voice, as if maybe John does know about another brother. Sam sure fucking hopes not. The last thing the world needs is another kid who John Winchester let down.

Sam’s not even going to think about that. “Dean says he’s bisexual,” he repeats slowly, wrapping his head around the idea. It hardly seems likely, but then, maybe he really doesn’t know his brother as well as he’d thought he did. “Why are you telling me?”

John scratches at the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. “Well, y’know, you’ve been living out in California. Figured you’d know a thing or two about that kinda shit, what to say and all that.”

Nothing in Sam’s life has left him prepared for this conversation. “You want me to tell you what to say? You want to—what?—tell him you accept him?”

John grunts. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Sam fixes his father with a look. “When I got into Stanford, you told me there was no way I was going to ‘some fancy school to learn how to be a pansy’. You know how many times you told Dean to ‘be a man’. So forgive me if I’m a little skeptical.”

John has the grace to look uncomfortable. “Well, a man can change,” he mutters. “Travelling sixteen years through time’ll do that to you.”

“Uh huh,” Sam says, already turning back to his book. “I’m not gonna tell you what to say to Dean. You can figure that out yourself. But you can grab a book and help me research, if you want.” He ducks his head back into his book, pulling out his pen to take more notes. He doesn’t look at his father, but he still feels John’s eyes on him for a long moment.

Finally, John looks away. “Fair enough,” is all he says, picking up a book of his own.

They work in silence.

~~~

 

Claire wraps her hands around a steaming mug, black, but with several packets of sugar. She hopes the cop didn’t notice—she’s got an image to maintain after all—but the little smirk Sheriff Mills wears tells her she didn’t quite succeed.

The sheriff sips her own coffee—milk and sugar, no pretense to keep up. “So, you’re one of Bobby Singer’s folks, huh?”

Claire scowls. “I said I wasn’t gonna talk about me.”

Sheriff Mills shrugs with a smile. “Fair enough. It just got me wondering, what a young woman like you was doing hanging around with the town drunk.”

“He’s my uncle,” Claire lies, “not that it matters.” She takes a big gulp of coffee to keep from saying more.”

“Mhm,” the sheriff hums. “Well, if you ever have a problem there, you can come to me or one of my deputies, okay?” she adds meaningfully. 

Claire gets her gist and pulls a face. “Oh, ew, no, it’s nothing like that.”

The sheriff takes another sip from her mug. “I had to ask. You did seem pretty upset earlier.” She doesn’t say anything more, just waits for Claire to respond.

“It’s nothing like that,” Claire mutters again. “It’s—ugh—my dad showed up, okay? Well, kinda. He walked out on me, years ago. And now it’s a big fucking mess, and no one told me he was there. So, yeah, I was upset, but I’m not in any kind of trouble, okay?”

“Okay.” Sheriff Mills puts her empty cup back on the table. “And I’m sorry for prying. I’d better get back to work, but you stay and finish your coffee, and thanks for talking to me.” She leaves a bill on the table to cover their drinks, and slips out of the booth. Briefly putting a warm hand on Claire’s shoulder, she adds, “You take care of yourself,” and then she’s gone, leaving Claire and her sugary brew.

~~~

 

Despite Dean’s admonition, Castiel is brooding. How could he not? There is, after all, nothing else he can do about his situation until Balthazar returns with news.

He feels guilty, too, about Claire Novak’s father. His vessel. He’s been itching with the urge to apologize to her again, to somehow make it right. But how can he make it right when he doesn’t know what had happened? He’d watched her tear off in her car maybe half an hour ago, felt the spiky edge of her pain, and ached from it. 

He’s not meant to feel this way about human pain, he thinks. He’s not meant to care. Angels are meant to use humans as vessels.

_ “Our purpose is much more important than their puny human lives,” _ someone had once said to him. He does not remember who. Another angel, but who and when and why?

He had regretted sending Dean away almost immediately. Balthazar’s words of warning may have been apt, but something about Dean’s presence steadies him. 

It’s no way for an angel to feel, but after what he’s learned today, he hardly feels like an angel.

_ A sorry excuse for one, at any rate. _

Angels can sense longing—or at least a desire for their presence—like an informal prayer. As if it works both ways, Dean appears in Castiel’s field of vision, picking his way through the maze of rusted out vehicles.

“Hey,” he says with a wan smile. “Sorry, I know you wanted to be alone, but man, I just had the weirdest conversation with my dad.” He leans back heavily against a relatively intact blue car, and blows out a gust of air from between his teeth.

“What happened?” Castiel asks, grateful for the distraction from his churning thoughts.

Dean eyes his sideways, as if gauging if Castiel really wants to know, and huffs a little laugh. “Well, let’s just say that at no point in my life did I think I’d be coming out to my dad. So, y’know, that was fun.” He scrubs a hand over his face, then glances up at Castiel, almost shyly. 

Castiel squints at him, uncomprehending. 

“Uh, I guess that sort of thing doesn’t really fly with the God-squad, huh?” Dean bites his lip in an oddly fascinating way and looks away. “Sorry to disappoint you, buddy.”

“What sort of thing?” Castiel asks, perplexed. 

Dean laughs uncomfortably, still not looking at him. “You know, the whole gay thing. Or well,” he gestures vaguely at himself, “bi, in my case, but same difference to you, I guess.”

_ Oh.  _

“I am utterly indifferent to sexual orientation,” Castiel tells him, since Dean appears concerned.

“Yeah?” Dean asks. “Is that the party line? ‘Cause someone should probably go tell the church.”

Castiel frowns. “Which church?” Perhaps once whatever has happened to him has been sorted out, he can set the congregation in question straight.

“Uh,” Dean says, “a lot of them. I mean, not all of them, but religion on a whole could probably use a wake up call.”

Castiel’s frown deepens. “I see.” Perhaps this is a bigger job than he thought. But at least he can reassure Dean. “Well, I have never heard of Heaven objecting to the gender of one’s sexual partner.”

“That you can remember,” Dean shoots back, cheeky.

“That I can remember,” Castiel parrots through icy lips, and watches Dean’s face fall.

“Oh shit, man, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. 

Castiel attempts a smile. He doesn’t think it succeeds. “It’s alright, Dean. I have to learn to accept what has happened to me.”

It’s Dean’s turn to frown. “That’s bullshit,” he declares.

Castiel is nonplussed. “Excuse me?”

“That’s bullshit,” Dean repeats. “Somebody mutilated you. They took your memories. They locked you out of your home. You don’t  _ learn to accept that.  _ You fight against it. How dare someone do this to you?”

Castiel voices the thought that’s been silently plaguing him. “You don’t think I deserve it? I don’t know what I’ve done. This could be some kind of punishment…”

“Fuck that,” Dean says with a firmness to his tone that rocks Castiel to the core of his grace. “I don’t care what you did; no one deserves that kind of punishment. And what the hell was that about re-education? That shit is not normal, Cas. You’re telling me angels get brainwashed, and that’s just okay now?”

“I—” Castiel says. “I’ve never thought about it. Or, I don’t remember ever thinking about it. I—What do I do now, Dean?”

Dean snorts. “Why are you asking me? What do you want to do, Cas? What would help you?”

Castiel thinks about it. He’s never had to before. No one has ever asked him what he wants. Angels aren’t supposed to have wants, or longings, or strange urges. They aren’t supposed to question, or doubt, or feel drawn to one particular human. 

Angels aren’t supposed to be like Castiel. And they certainly aren’t supposed to do what he does next.

Without giving himself another moment to question his actions, Castiel reaches out and grasps Dean’s wrist in his hand.

“What—?” Dean manages as Castiel tugs him closer, until they are pressed together chest-to-chest. “Uh, Cas?”

He doesn’t say anything else. Throwing caution to the wind, Castiel presses his lips to Dean’s.


End file.
